Supreme Court quashes one-year suspension of 12 BJP MLAs from Maharashtra Assembly, calls it ‘unconstitutional and arbitrary’

While quashing the suspension, the Supreme Court termed the decision as ‘unconstitutional and arbitrary’, and said the resolution was illegal and "beyond the powers of the Assembly".

NEW DELHI: In a major judgement, the Supreme Court on Friday quashed the one-year suspension of 12 BJP MLAs from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly while terming it “unconstitutional and arbitrary”.

While quashing the suspension, the Supreme Court termed the decision as ‘unconstitutional and arbitrary’, and said the Maharashtra assembly resolution of July 5, 2021, was ''illegal'' and "beyond the powers of the Assembly". 

“The resolution suspending 12 BJP MLAs from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly beyond the period of the remainder of the session held in July 2021 is unconstitutional,” the top court said in its order.

Supreme Court quashes one-year suspension from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly of 12 BJP MLAs while terming it unconstitutional and arbitrary. MLAs were suspended for one year for allegedly misbehaving with the presiding officer. pic.twitter.com/LsXiT9MtNR — ANI (@ANI) January 28, 2022

It may be noted that the BJP MLAs were suspended for one year for allegedly misbehaving with the presiding officer. The BJP MLAs later challenged their suspension in the top court. The 12 suspended BJP MLAs were Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkalkar, Parag Alavni, Harish Pimpale, Ram Satpute, Vijay Kumar Rawal, Yogesh Sagar, Narayan Kuche and Kirtikumar Bangdia.

Reacting to the verdict, former Maharashtra chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis thanked the Supreme Court. “We welcome & thank the Hon SC for the historic decision of quashing of suspension of our 12 @BJP4Maharashtra MLAs, who were fighting for the cause of OBCs in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during the monsoon session,'' he said in a tweet.

The top court had last week reserved its judgement in the matter after the 12 MLAs had moved the SC challenging their suspension from the Assembly for the alleged unruly conduct. 

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who had represented some of the petitioners in the court, had said during the course of the hearing “The decision of the House without hearing lacks natural justice and is extremely irrational. They cannot police an MLA for one year… This is arbitrary.”  

Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, who had appeared for some of the other petitioners, also said the intention of the suspension should have been to discipline. 

During the arguments, the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar had said that the suspension of the 12 MLAs was prima facie unconstitutional. 

After the top court order, the BJP MLAs will now be entitled to all consequential benefits after the conclusion of the session in July, last year.